Rain from the Cloudless Sky
by DuHSPaZZiNGFeL
Summary: During the Fourth Shinobi World War, Naruto is at his most powerful, but Kabuto can figure out at least one weakness and he plans to exploit it to the fullest extent. AU. REPOST.


**Description: During the Fourth Shinobi World War, Naruto is at his most powerful, but Kabuto van figure out at least one weakness and he plans to exploit it to the fullest extent. AU.**

**Genre: Adventure/Drama**

**Pairings?: None. Gen fic.**

**Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto. Otherwise, I would not be writing fanfiction.**

**AN: REPOST. The original was somehow deleted. **

**I have heard that apparently one who has been sealed away by the death god cannot be revived by the Impure World Resurrection Summoning Technique. For all purposes in this story, please suspend your imagination and disregard that supposed fact. **

**It's kind of a "used" idea, but there was a bit of merit in using it. Plus, I suppose you can say I added my own twist to this anyway. **

**Rain from the Cloudless Sky**

_Here is the deepest secret nobody knows: my family is dead, but in my heart they always live._

"Look at him," one ninja whispered to another as they attempted to rest on the sidelines of the battlefield, unashamedly hidden by the many shades of trees and green leaves. "…that Uzumaki kid. Somehow, he's just like the Yellow Flash. No. _Exactly _like him."

Blond hair and blue eyes, the same straight, spiky hair that flew in wild directions, Naruto Uzumaki had it all. His speed seemed to match the Fourth Hokage's and only a flash, or a second-long yellow blur that matched his hair came into view as he appeared to be in more than one location at once, kunai after kunai glinting in the fading sunlight while the young ninja banished his prey. And the most astonishing fact was that the boy never learned the Fourth's Flying Thunder God Technique. It was all on his own; it was all by instinct.

An adversary after another collapsed either severely wounded or knocked out. The Nine-Tails' host did not dare to stop, nor did he waver in his destructive path. He was truly a human weapon, a powerful ninja that fewer and fewer could hope to match. His movements were eerily beautiful, like a fierce dance on the stage of war.

Yes, they fought in the Fourth Ninja World War for their lives and for the lives of their people. Ninja alliances, like that they had never seen before, even in the days of the previous Great Wars, united them, made them stronger, made all of them more hopeful.

In the long run it was always their leaders that gave shinobi strength, their leaders who gave them the courage and bravery to keep going on no matter what happened, and they supposed that this Uzumaki would one day fall under that category.

He was a young man of many surprises, including that fact that he was, in total truth, the dead last of his graduating class. Yet, Naruto had managed to give the Sand's Kazekage a change of heart, to convince the Cloud's Raikage that he should put all faith in him, to scare the Stone's Tsuchikage into the past in which they had lost tremendously to the Leaf, and to force the Leaf's Hokage into the present and not to dwell solely on her battered past.

A miracle child, that's who Naruto was turning out to be. Others may even say he was the child of some forsaken prophecy of old. Still more others began to coin the nickname "The Second Coming of the Yellow Flash," or "Maelstrom," or still a more common name, "The Number One Most Unpredictable Ninja."

So perhaps it wasn't much of a shock when the allied shinobi had somehow found themselves stuck onto the sidelines, unwilling, unable, or simply deemed as one who would "only get in the way" of this particular fight scene.

There were whispers of his speed and unorthodox fighting style, especially his impulsive taijutsu. But, somehow, the moves still were effective to say the least.

The enemy was falling back. The enemy plants, "Zetsu," some heard they were called, had vanished into thin air. The undead zombies of their loved ones and fellow comrades had stopped coming in the hordes and battalions as before. They were becoming easier to fend off, slowing down in their erratic and odd advances, and becoming quite easy to seal up or otherwise incapacitate.

Of course, all of these trained and highly specialized killers should have realized sooner that things would never have stayed as well as they were. On the battlefield, only one reality was clear and should always be taken as true: there will _always _be something that goes wrong, and if something _could _go wrong, it will.

"What's wrong _Naruto,_" Kabuto spat at his flailing enemy, his cracked, snake-like features crinkling on ghost-while skin, "Afraid I'll awaken my old master, Lord Oorochimaru?"

The blond gritted his teeth in response. "Hah! As if, Scaly! Still think I'm afraid of that snake bastard? I'd be more scared of little mouse!"

Kabuto growled at that statement and made no move to say another word. Instead, his yellowing pupils seemed to squint and observe the boy even more circumspectly, like a real snake preparing to slither its body around an unsuspecting prey. His calculating stare would have unnerved another other person, expect that this was Naruto, and Naruto didn't cave into a glare like that.

The former Sannin's apprentice made a creepy hissing noise and made to strike the blond, who easily dodged out of the way. His hand rose up in a posture that truly represented the snake he was transforming into, both hands and fingers pointed like a snake's head. The glasses-wearing freak show tried to hit pressure points on Naruto's shoulders and arms, but the teen flipped away, causing the dirt beneath them to shift and rise, clouds of dust rippling into the cooling air.

Naruto tried to do a back flip and attempted to kick the adversary upside the head, but was immediately (and quite literally), shot down. A miniature explosion shook the clearing and dust covered the two fighters' tracks for a few moments. The bystanders could not even hope to spot anything within the cloud.

Grunting from the sudden hit, Naruto finally noticed that Kabuto had managed to his a pressure point on his left leg's calf.

_Great_, he thought, _now it's gonna be hard to stand. _

If he could say so himself, Kabuto's new techniques of hitting pressure points was more annoying that it needed to be. At least the guy had not started to use his terrible medical ninjutsu techniques. They he would really be dead. If he could, he would be in Sage Mode or Nine-Tailed Fox Mode right about then, but he had a strange feeling that something big was about to come up, so he decided it probably would be best to conserve his energy.

As the mushroom cloud flitted into the sky, the two figures became incredibly clear, like they had not disappeared from view in the first place. Naruto was in a crouched battle stance, one of his legs looking lightly shaky, and the Snake's apprentice stood incredibly straight, his dark cloak waving in the wind and a strange and smug smirk sat on his face, as if a brilliant and evil idea had suddenly hit him. They were a good few meters away from each other and though the clearing was silent, the bystanders noticed that the leaved that graced the earth began to swirl in patterns, reacting to the indirect display of tension and power.

Kabuto Yakushi narrowed his eyes at the boy before him, lips curling. "Who _are _you, Naruto Uzumaki? Why do you seem different than before? Of course, your new abilities may account for your new aura, but yet…" He trailed off, tilting his head as he observed. Then, he came to a conclusion within his own mind. "…no. I sense something I hadn't noticed before. Yet, I sense that it has always been there. The Nine-Tails…? No. That's not it."

Then, Kabuto laughed darkly and the once contradictorily bright sky had seemed to darken. "Ah I see. Perhaps absorbing my old master has had more than one benefit. After all, a snake's sense is always far above that of a mere man's."

"What the hell are you on about?" Naruto bellowed furiously. He didn't have time for all this rambling, damn it! He needed to defeat this guy before things got a lot worse than what they already were!

The snake tilted his head the other way, again with a look of calculation. He chose not to answer the question directly, but instead said something else that caught the Uzumaki completely off guard.

"You're almost exactly like the Yellow Flash…no…almost a _complete duplicate _of him," he said and he felt that of many of Konoha's own ninja especially stiffen at the comment. What was that supposed to mean? No one seemed to know…

The man sneered. "The Fourth's Legacy, huh? You even look like him too."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Wha…?"

And then, even more unexpected, Kabuto made a few rapid hand seals before anyone could stop him, his fingers blurring in the limelight, yellowish irises glinting in concentration an some sort of profound understanding that was practically _genius _to him, if he might so humbly add. His circular glasses rims reflected the sunlight as he slammed his right hand into the ground, a black intricate seal appearing on the rugged surface and words tumbled confidently out from his mouth.

"Summoning technique: Impure World Resurrection!"

The shinobi on the sidelines backed away rapidly, opting to steer are _far away _from another damned powerful undead version of some ninja that ought_ to stay dead_. If Kabuto had resurrected someone in front of a potentially strong challenger, then they were as good as dead in the water. Whoever would come back to life would not be an easy opponent.

A perfectly rigid and rectangular stone box had risen out of the earth. No symbols were written on it, and of course it was shaped like a tomb. Shifting dust blew away and Kabuto motioned at the coffin saying, "…your new opponent," to the teen.

The lid slowly slid off, making an ominous _ker-plunk _should as it hit solid ground.

"Come!" That was the shouted command from the snake and if possible, his smug smirk only grew wider. That could not be a good sign at all.

One sandaled foot stepped out of the prison, and then another, until a billowing white cloak trimmed with orange-red flames on the bottom was revealed. All around the clearing, Leaf ninja shuddered and stiffened noticeably. The elder Stone ninja seemed to shrink further into their hiding places. The younger generations that were present (others were still on other parts of the battlefield), looked utterly confused. Who was this ninja that so many seemed to fear?

A mop of messy blond hair and a dark blue Leaf forehead protector shone in the sun's rays. The man had finally stepped out fully. His skin was a pale, yet tanned tone, and he was easily a few inches taller than Naruto. Then, the flame patterned cloak rippled more and the words "Fourth Hokage" could be read and seen by everyone present.

"…no way," a Leaf ninja with black hair in a ponytail resembling a pineapple and who was called Shikamaru spoke softly, sending a wide-eyed gaze in recognition to his father who was tense beside him.

Kabuto laughed, the crazed sound bouncing off of tree trunks. "You see, Naruto Uzumaki! I know your weakness!"

His arms gestured wildly to the blond former Hokage in front of him. "Here I present to you the very man who sealed your fate, the very man who sealed the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox within you when you were still a helpless infant, the man who is the source of all your misery and suffering as you grew up _shunned _by the very village you are trying so _desperately _to protect, the Fourth Hokage!

"Go on! Take him on! Do you really believe that you can? Do you really believe you can defeat a shinobi as powerful as the Fourth? He was revered as a genius of his time, a master in the art of the ninja!" Then, the snake pointed at the undead Hokage forcefully. "This man _gave _you the power that you hold against us, and you think that you can hope to fend him off? I think not!"

Kabuto did not even have to stick a sealed kunai or weapon onto the Fourth to gain control. He had perfected his master's technique to that extent. No, he had made it even better. He was already in control.

"Go, Fourth Hokage! Destroy Uzumaki Naruto!" He shouted the order and the coffin sank back into the earth. The clearing was deathly quiet. No one knew what to do.

Sakura tried to shout out to her teammate to run away. He couldn't possibly defeat a kage as strong as the Fourth! But their teacher, Kakashi, firmly slapped a hand over her lips and shook his head. Those who saw that signal got the message. They were not in interfere unless absolutely necessary.

The snake apprentice watched as the Hokage began to walk nearer and nearer to his designated opponent. And yet, though Naruto was always known to jump into a situation with barely a second thought and with virtually nonexistent fear, the blond was backing away, a look of pure terror, awe, and shock upon his features.

He stumbled farther away, trying not to look at those blue eyes that were exactly like his own, the black pigment that surrounded them as a sign of impure resurrection, or the golden hair, or the blank expression on the approaching man's face, or to even _think about _that this was…this was…

"No…no…no…" he muttered, absolute fear and dread taking him over. "I can't fight him…not him…"

The Uzumaki faintly heard the taunts from his enemy and snippets of it including that he was "obviously too weak to take the Fourth on" and "just a beast with no purpose." Maybe he was right. Maybe he was too weak to fight this man, but not for the reasons that Kabuto thought.

Abruptly, the blond Hokage stopped his advance, a mere meter away from the fallen Naruto and he frowned, a crease forming between his eyebrows as if he was thinking, and then…

"Naruto," Minato Namikaze murmured as if the word were precious to him. "I'm not in full control of my body. You need to get away from me or I'll injure you."

The teen's blue eyes widened, an emotion of wonder boring into the other man's. "But, how…?"

"_Please,_" the undead man was begging now. It was evident in his voice, even as he seemed to have forced his body to halt its action. "Get away from me. I can keep my consciousness, but that doesn't change the fact that I am part of a technique. You need to destroy me, get away from me, _anything_. Get _up_, Naruto!"

At his command, Naruto shot up, standing shakily on two legs.

Kabuto snarled at the action. "What's this? Why are you resisting me, Fourth Hokage? You are under my control! You will obey _my will_!"

Naruto started to sprint around the clearing, picking up scattered leaves as he did so, and backed near a bush where his Sage Technique (that he had somehow recently applied as he was a sitting duck on the ground seconds before), had told him Kakashi-sensei was hidden in.

He twitched his fingertips frantically while Kabuto was temporarily distracted with the disobeying Hokage and the teacher got the message.

"Sensei," Naruto whispered roughly out to where he knew his silver-haired teacher and his only female teammate had hidden. "The Fourth was your teacher. Got anything on him?"

He heard a slight shuffling and realized that was a nod. Kakashi replied equally calm, though an uncharacteristic hint of frantic emotion was hidden beneath it. "Minato-sensei wasn't known to have many weaknesses. He was the fastest shinobi in existence, a seal master, quick-thinking, and quick-learning. He's powerful. No one could beat him, not even Jiraya could after he had finished training him."

Naruto scowled and whispered back. "That's not helping!"

"I'm just telling you what you need to know, Naruto," he heard the ninja reply matter-of-factually. "But…"

"But…?" the blond said impatiently.

"…Minato-sensei did have a weakness. He would, by any circumstances, protect those he cares about." There was a pause for silence and the struggle for control with Minato and Kabuto seemed almost at its end. "I think you know exactly what I mean," Kakashi added.

"You are a Namikaze, Naruto," the older man continued and with the revelation, he heard Sakura gasp. "You're the Fourth Hokage's son. You know that. That's why you don't want to fight him. He's your father. And, that's why he's struggling so hard against Kabuto. He doesn't want to fight you either. But that's exactly the answer. _You_ are his son. _You_ are his weakness."

Naruto did not answer. Instead, he nodded his head and shot out onto the battlefield.

Kabuto had regained control over his undead father and soon they were in a struggle for their lives. Minato still had his consciousness though, arguing vehemently with the snake that he could not possibly hope to fully take over his soul because he knew exactly how to counter him. He _was _a kage-level shinobi after all.

"Naruto," Minato said quickly as his son ducked under his fist. "Change into the Nine-Tails Mode now. I'm about to use the Hiraishin. It makes me as fast as the speed of lightning. That is the only technique you have that is fast enough. Hurry!"

Just as the yellow-white glow of the fox's cloak had engulfed him, his father flashed and zipped in and out of existence like the flicker of a light bulb, mere milliseconds of sight, and he was so unbelievably fast. Naruto almost couldn't believe it.

He flashed by and the speed of the fox's power allowed him to flash away on his own, narrowly being missed by an odd three-pronged kunai to his neck.

"Shadow Clo—" he started, but then he was knocked backwards by a hard kick to the gut.

"A slow technique like that won't work! Use the fox's power!"

And so Naruto pointed his fingertips towards the sky and formed miniature _rasenshurikens _and threw them at the flashing form of his father. A few seconds later, they had all missed. Then, he skidded out of the way of another fully formed _rasengan _in the fast palm of the Fourth, a resounded explosion echoing in the trees and dirt billion up in hundreds of clouds.

Deep swirl marks and holes were all over the clearing now and Kabuto hissed in satisfaction. All the bystander shinobi couldn't keep up. It was like all they were witnessing were a bunch of flashes of light, bangs, crashes, and explosions that came out of nowhere.

Naruto flipped up, getting grazed by one of his father's kunai. Minato had shouted soon after that he had marked him with the seal of the Hiraishin and that he had better come up with a quick counter attack.

Still up in the air, the Fourth had suddenly materialized out of nowhere and knocked him with some sort of wind technique that caused a huge reverberating explosion, slamming him into the center of the clearing and forming a tremendous crater.

If he didn't have the Nine-Tails' chakra to protect his body, Naruto was sure he would be dead already.

The teen struggled to stand up, but he knees felt wobbly and weak. When he looked up he noticed that his father was having a kind of internal battle with himself. He had a sheen of sweat over his pale skin, and his mouth formed a grimace.

"I…I…can't…he's my son…" He breathed out. Unfortunately, the snake had heard.

Kabuto's expression changed from amused to highly amused in just a second. "Ah! Interesting! _Interesting_! So, the son of the Fourth Hokage? A father and son battle? That must be it! That must be what I had sensed! You are a Namikaze, Naruto Uzumaki!" He chuckled under his breath. "What an interesting spectacle I have let myself watch then…"

Naruto ground his teeth and lunged at the snake. "You bastard!"

A fist coved in yellow flames came whirling towards the snake's head, but a scaly white tail had blocked the assault easily.

"Do you really think you should be paying attention to me? How about your father over there?"

The blond teenager landed with a painful thud on the ground and frantically whipped around to see the darkened expression of his father. His head was bowed, unlike it had been before, and a slowly whirring rasengan was forming in his right palm.

"Naruto," he said, and his son understood straight away.

Another cloud of ominous smoke began to rise, this time with a reddish tinge. A bizarre bubbling noise ripped though the crater, the bystander shinobi all but forgotten. The fox's cloak around Naruto's flesh was transforming, six purple orbs appeared floating about his head, all glowing with raw power. His skin seemed to be luminescent, fire spurted out in a circle around his body and blast after flare caused burned rocks to shoot up from the earth, stay up for a second, and crumble in blackened sand.

Kabuto was completely obscured from view. Another whirring sound was heard, and two giant balls of chakra, rasengan, shone through the smoke. One was slightly greener than the other, and it was clear that they belonged to two separate people.

"_Eh…I dunno if this'll actually be useful in the future," Naruto remembered the Pervy Sage had said to him one day, "but it may be good to know that when two very similar chakra types are near each other, particularly if the chakra is of a family member and if the chakra is formed in the same fashion, they resonate and become a force to be reckoned with…"_

_Jiraya had sighed and finished with, "Huh. Too bad I never actually got to try it before."_

Father and son screeched to a halt, hitting Kabuto full force, who was barely able to shield himself. They had rammed their similar techniques and chakras into their common enemy, working together the best that they could. The Fourth had willingly broken out of his control, and though he was still under the Impure World Summoning Technique, he could now control his own movements and refuse to be controlled by another.

The dust had settled and the smoke had evaporated. Kabuto had fled for a while, though not quite defeated yet.

Feeling a sense of relief, Naruto and his father did not even notice that the shinobi who had witnessed the battle had come out of hiding and formed a loose circle around the two, though they were still many feet away from them. Perhaps it was as a precaution.

They stared at the Fourth openly, especially the Leaf ninjas as Naruto and he smiled warmly at the other, a moment in time, a shared bond.

And then, just for a moment, the world was calm. Minato had placed a hand on the ruffled hair of his son and said, very proudly, that he was proud of him. Then, just as things seemed to grow into something happy, he stiffened and it was like a mysterious thing had clicked into place. He murmured sadly that Kabuto had relinquished the technique. He would dissipate at any moment.

"Wait, no!" Naruto said, desperation evident in his voice. "I just got you back! You can't leave! Not so soon!"

Minato smiled sadly. "I've never been prouder than in this very moment. Your mother and I, we love you very much. You have friends and the village, people you care about and who care about you. I wish things were different and that the Kyuubi hadn't attacked, but I regret nothing if it meant that I could save your life when you were born."

_He remembered meeting his father for the first time as he was battling Pain, when he was so angry and frustrated and bent on revenge when the Akatsuki had assaulted Konoha, his home. He remembered first feeling mad that his father could do such a thing to him, to seal a monster within his own child, but he had soon understood, and he was so proud to be their son…_

_"Pain was the one who killed Jiraiya-sensei, but the more I think about it, the more I believe he was killed by that disorder that gave birth to Pain."_

_He remembered the first pat on the head, the warm feeling that could not seem to stop swelling up from the pit of his stomach to the very ends of his toes, how he had felt so _good _that he had pleased his dad, that he could make him smile and make him glad._

_"You will find the answer… I believe in you."_

_He remembered how beautiful his mother was when he first met her, deep in his psyche while trying to subdue the Nine-Tails. She had such pretty and long red hair that he had almost wished that his hair was that way too…_

_"Thank you for letting me be your mother and for letting Minato be your father. Thank you for being our son. Thank you… Thank you!"_

_He remembered how they had both vanished and he was alone again in the white expanse of his mind and they weren't. No. His parents weren't. _

His father smiled, a bittersweet smile that graced his undead features and said, "Happy birthday, son," and subsequently disintegrated into the wind.

He didn't even realize it, but this day was, in fact, the Tenth of October. Naruto did not understand how his dad knew the date, but possibly that was just something a parent inherently _knew_. But maybe it was for another reason. Maybe it was because not only was he born on that day, but it was also the day his parents had lost their lives to protect their only baby boy.

His heart suddenly ached, and yet, though Kabuto had retreated for the moment, the shinobi in the clearing were not rejoicing at all. All of them were all as quiet as the air had been on the night the Kyuubi had first attacked seventeen years ago.

There were no clouds outside, yet there was a light drizzle that dampened the trees' roots that came overhead.


End file.
